Pages

Monday, October 08, 2012

It's nice to finally be able to blog about being pregnant! I've known for a while, but I just didn't feel like sharing with the whole world. Now it's beginning to be obvious that I'm pregnant if I wear a tight enough shirt, so no more secrecy.

This pregnancy is funny--I really don't know when to expect this baby! I'm either 16 weeks along or 12 weeks along. After my very early miscarriage, I thought I had another cycle...but it was really light and really short. Nothing like I've ever had before. I strongly suspect it wasn't a cycle at all, but just some breakthrough spotting that happened to come right when I would have had a period. Other reasons for thinking I'm 16 weeks along:

The timing of my icky/queasy/exhausted stage also points to being 16 weeks, not 12 weeks.

But...I can only say I'm about 95% sure. There is still the possibility of my baby coming in late April rather than late March! This uncertainty doesn't bother me at all. In fact, I like not really knowing and not really caring.

The icky stage was pretty awful. And I know I have it easy compared to so many other women. I never puke; I just feel queasy all day and all night. I feel dizzy and weak. I am extremely exhausted. Like my other pregnancies, these symptoms lasted about 6 weeks. But this time was brutal. I've never experienced such exhaustion before. And when you have three small children, you can't just lie on the couch all day! I'd basically collapse once Eric came home.

My best coping strategy was reading; I devoured my way through books 2-5 of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series. I highly recommend her books: they're smart, entertaining, passionate, and incredibly well-researched.

But now I feel great. I have tons of energy, I have an appetite again, and I am not a useless blob who neglects her children in favor of reading a book. Take today, for example: I taught my 8 am freshman composition class (biking there and back), sewed 4 slings, fed the children lunch, worked on a vaginal breech workshop I'm organizing, walked the kids to pick up Zari from school, went to my first prenatal appointment, prepared 2 dinners for later this week while Eric cooked fried green tomatoes, and put Inga and Zari to bed. I couldn't fathom doing any of these things earlier this pregnancy--except I had to do some of them.

I thought of that, but I doubt it based on when I started feeling icky (if I were 12 weeks along, it would have started before I got pregnant!) and on when I started feeling movement. Both of those just don't line up with the later conception date. So honestly, I'm more certain than even 95%.

Just wanted to throw out there that you should consider getting a better estimate of how far along you are. If you were to go into labour early it could make the difference of knowing if you should be heading to the hospital or not. Being in labour at 36 weeks is a lot different than being in labour at 32 weeks.

Susan, I appreciate your concern. I don't feel having a dating ultrasound is warranted at this point (although I certainly have that option; my CNM asked if I wanted one at my prenatal visit). Based on all of the signs so far, everything points to me being 16 weeks, not 12. The only way I could have the fundal height I do, and be only 12 weeks along, is if I had twins.

But, like I said to a previous commenter and mentioned in the post, all the pregnancy signs indicate an earlier conception date: onset of queasiness/fatigue (which hits me pretty consistently each pregnancy at a certain amount of weeks), fundal height, and especially when I started feeling definite movement. My fundal heights have always been spot-on during the last half of pregnancy (I know because I chart everything weekly on Excel spreadsheets, because I am geeky like that).

The only thing that would make a later conception date possible with everything else as it is would be twins. Now if I suspect twins at some point, I for sure would get an ultrasound to confirm. I'd definitely want to know if they were mono/mono twins or not, etc! But unless I have signs that point to twins, the earlier conception date is almost certain.

Congrats!I'm envious that you start feeling babe at 12 weeks; I never felt it sooner than 18 weeks (and I had a miscarrage at 13 weeks). I had non-stop nausea too, and there is lots you can do for it! I was so bad with my last pregnancy that I almost wished for another miscarrage. So I called "MotherRisk" at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children and they were so helpful. I started using Gaviscon and that really helped, along with Sea Bands, sour candies and B6. Just want to let others know that you don't have to just put up with it :)